


The Dancing Future of Sarain

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: AU, Celebration of K'miri Culture, Gen, K'miri, Sarain, Song - Freeform, Thayet as Queen of Sarain, dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27307075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Thayet sings and dances with the K'miri. An AU in which Thayet is queen of Sarain.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	The Dancing Future of Sarain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Malorie's Peak Prompt "Dance" at Goldenlake.

The Dancing Future of Sarain

Thayet, Queen of Sarain by the determination and courage she had inherited from her K’miri mother and by the mysterious, mythical magics in the Dominion Jewel from the Roof of the World Alanna had offered her, stood in the highland steppes of her mother’s people. The long strings of red and blue —red for progress and prosperity; blue for the eternal blue sky arching overhead—beads on her tall, traditional Hau Ma headdress blew and danced in the strong winds sweeping across the steppe. 

She felt more stately and ceremonial, more connected to the land she ruled, in the tribal headdress of her mother’s people than she ever did in her heavy golden crown weighed down by rubies, emeralds, and sapphires in the lowlands. 

Upon ascending to the throne after negotiating or eliminating all the rival warlords who had sought to claim Sarain’s crown after her father’s death—how satisfying it had been to see Buri slay the slimy serpent Dusan zhir Anduo who had tried to take her hand in marriage—one of Thayet’s first official acts as queen was to repeal the restriction on gatherings of the K’miri. 

This was to be the first Nadaam since Adigun jin Wilima’s restrictions on K’miri gatherings were rescinded. The Nadaam would feature games in what the K’mir defined as the ancient masculine arts of archery, horse racing, and wrestling, and because the K’mir had come to accept the proverb that women held up half the eternal blue sky, women were permitted to compete in their own games of archery and horse racing. 

Thayet eagerly anticipated cheering Buri to victory in the women’s archery competition. She would have enjoyed competing herself, but her advisors not named Buri had all insisted that it would be contrary to her dignity as queen to partake in the events herself. She must instead watch the games from the sidelines. 

Before the games could begin, however, they had to be opened in the manner specified by sacred K’miri custom. First the K’mir from all the tribes must gather in a great circle around four fires—each consecrated to one of the Four Horse Lords who were divine children of Mother Fire and Father Storm. In this circle, they would sing a deep, echoing throat song praising each of the Four Horse Lords in turn. 

Joining this circle now with Buri’s hand tight between hers even though they were of different tribes, Thayet found herself carried into the splendid rises and haunting falls of the music. In the verses celebrating Bian North-Wind, the goddess of trade, sleep, and fertility who gave birth to horses she heard the joy of exchange but also the grief of the swindled, the rest and drama of dreams, the moans of a birthing mare, and the howl of all mothers giving bloody birth to a child. She heard life and she heard pain. 

Then the next lyrics recognizing Chavi West-Wind, goddess of cleansing, music, and marriage, made her feel the relaxation of sinking into a hot spring on a cool night but also the agony of a cut washed with alcohol in an aching upswell. She could hear the memories of every song shared by the K’mir over a blazing fire for all their long, unrecorded history. She could feel the excitement of a new marriage and the thrill of desire followed by the inevitable disappointment when the perfect partner proved to be sadly human and flawed after all. She could hear the anguish and ecstasy of love, purification, and loss. Words she had only begun to understand when her mother had leapt from a tower in defiance of her father and her country had been consumed by chaos.

Tears streamed down Thayet’s cheeks like mountain rivulets as the song moved on to praise Vau East-Wind, the god of creation, strength, and truth who had helped Bian give birth to horses. She could feel the wonder and the horror of every living, breathing thing that existed for a short time under the cold gaze of the eternal blue sky. Trembling with the music, she experienced the power that came with being strong as well as the heart-stopping fear that came with being trapped in the clenched fist of another. She felt the glorious, soaring freedom of the truth, but also the crashing hurt of it when the truth seemed to painful to be borne or accepted. She heard the terror and the majesty of strength, of truth, of all the splendid array of creation. 

Then the current of the song carried her into the words that honored Shai South-Wind, the god of magic, sex, and healing. She felt the might and mystery of magic. Of the Gift she had seen in Alanna. Of the prophecy she had received through Doi palm-reading that had promised she would be queen of a united Sarain. Of the Dominion Jewel she had taken from Alanna and held with earth-shaking power between her hands as the Doi had foreseen. She felt the healing of a broken bone reset. She felt the healing of a land torn apart by bigotry and bloodshed. She felt what her virgin self was certain must be the painful, pounding pleasure of sex. 

In the throes of this passion, she felt her connection to the Four Horse Lords as she never had before and felt entwined with her people, her heritage in a deeper, truer way than ever before. A way that transcended blood and bone. A way rooted in transcendent spirit and truth, sorrow and joy, creation and death, horses and magic. Everything she had ever experienced seemed to be encompassed in this sacred song that had stopped but lingered in the air long after its last note had faded into the wind. 

After that sacred song, the K’mir began to dance to the accompaniment of the two-stringed lute called the tovshuur and the horse-headed fiddle. The K’miri dance embodied their nomadic lifestyle with hand, shoulder, and leg movements depicting everyday tasks such as goat milking, cooking, and hunting. Due to the rather limited space before the fires, the K’miri dance involved almost no use of the feet. Instead the drama of everyday existence—of sex, of tribe, of ethnic identity—was expressed in the rhythmic motions of hands, shoulders, chest, waist, and head. 

As she joined the dance as best she could—being raised in the south, she hadn’t been taught the art of K’miri dance since childhood—Thayet saw that every tribe had their own unique expression and interpretation of the dance. Her mother’s people, the Hau Ma, danced with their knees bent outwards and balancing mugs of the sour mare-milk called airag while the Raadeh danced with those mugs of airag perched on their heads. The Sembou squatted as they danced, inclining their bodies forward so the fires shone orange on their faces, and the Churi always moved in the direction of the sun traveling across the sky. 

Swallowed up in the dance, Thayet smiled at the diversity and the unity of the K’miri all around her and believed with every strum of the tovshuur and the horse-headed fiddle that this colorful, beautiful dance was the future of Sarain.


End file.
